Wednesday, April 16, 2014

2nd EMAIL to CC re ETHICS

Untitled Document

Mayor Joe Hernandez,

I have 2 items I would like to address with you as the Mayor and presiding officer of the City Commission of San Benito.

Please note that both of this City Charter Articles mentioned below have the word SHALL inserted in them. There is no ambiguity in the word SHALL; it indicates something which is mandatory and compulsory and which is fundamental to the entire City Charter.

ETHICS ORDINANCE

It has been almost a year and a half (February 2012) since the Commission was made aware or alerted by the City Attorney that the City was in violation of “City Charter Article VIII GENERAL PROVISIONS Section 8.01. Conflicts of Interest” The section specifically states……..

“a)……... The City Commission SHALL implement this prohibition by ORDINANCE.

The proposed (31 page) Ethics Ordinance (click to read ordinance) has been discussed at the off-site March 2, 2013 workshop meeting and at a March 5, 2013 City Commission meeting (where it was tabled) and again place on the agenda (with no discussion at all) at the workshop on Monday, July 15, 2013.

I have been informed that the entire City Commission has been provided with an updated version of the proposed Ethics Ordinance and the Commission has had possession of it for quite a while.

The City Charter is the “Constitution” for the city. Each member of the Commission recited some kind of OATH before taking a seat on the City Commission. It was probably similar to this OATH of OFFICE (click to read OATH) recited and signed by the Mayor as the affiant.

APPOINTMENT of MAYOR PRO-TEM

The revised City Charter “Article III CITY COMMISSION Section 3.03 Mayor……”The City Commission SHALL elect from among its members a Mayor Pro Tem in May of each year” also needs to be implemented or abided to.

As I have opined before, the City Attorney and the City Charter Committee have done their job in presenting the charter amendments to the citizens. The citizens have responded and now it is way past due for the City Commission to take action and act on the voice of the majority of the voters.

Incidentally, it only takes two members of the City Commission (more than 2 would constitute a quorum) to discuss and place these items on the “City Commission Agenda”!

However, Mayor Hernandez has the authority to place this item on the agenda without approval of the other members of the City Commission if he so wishes.

Finally, could you kindly provide me a reason, argument, or rationale, legal or otherwise, justifying the delay in implementing these two items required by the voter approved City Charter.

Regards!

Jose F. Rodriguez

1 comment:

The Truth said...

In San Benito playing politics, compadrismo and favoritism always seem far more comfortable ways of doing business than anything to do with accountability, good judgement and ethical government practices.
The San Benito City Secretary, Lupita Passement, has again ignored using any good judgement on the recount asked for by Candidate Shirley Vega of the City Commissioner Place 2 race. While it's true that Ms. Passement is in charge of the local elections, why would she want to skew the recount in favor of one candidate or the other? Why would she want to use all only her people to conduct the recount when the challenging candidate, (Ms. Vega), is paying the counters? Why would she insist on doing the recount before the new Mayor could be sworn in? How could the exiting Mayor Hernandez allow such an unfair process to take place? Why give the incumbent the advantage?
San Benito is very much in need of professional and ethical City employees. Is it going to remain, here we go again with 'business as usual'. The City administrators again fall far short of what citizens deserve. We must have integrity in our City elections or San Benito will continue to elect bad people and remain the bad joke of South Texas!
Where are the State and Federal investigators when the voters really need them??